Brickyard 400

August 3, 1996
Indianapolis, IN

During the first day of practice, the qualifying motor broke. This required removing the engine and replacing it with another one. Derrike Cope said that it was disappointing because they thought that motor was going to give them a shot at the pole. But they know what the motor had in horsepower and torque numbers so they will be able to apply that to the new motor. Derrike also stated that his father, who had bypass surgery last week, is doing fine.

The first day of qualifying did not go too well for Derrike and the team as he qualified in 34th position. The team chose to qualify again in the second round session on Friday afternoon and joined the starting field of 40 cars in 36th position.

During the "happy hour" practice session after qualifying, Derrike was asked how things were. He replied, "I really feel bad for the Badcock Furniture and the Pilot folks because of our qualifying effort, but we've made a few changes here and the car's responding, so I'm optimistic."

At the start of the race, there was an incident at the rear of the field in which Derrike fortunately just missed. By lap 16, Derrike had made his way up to 28th position. Other positions during the race were:

• 24th - lap 28
• 22nd - lap 35
• after Kyle Petty and Sterling Marlin produced a caution, the team took four tires and Derrike came out on lap 47 in 19th
• 21st - lap 57
• 12th - lap 84
• 16th - lap 91
• 14th - lap 105
• 10th - lap 115
• a caution came out because of debris which helped to close up the field. Derrike pitted and came out in 16th position with 30 laps to go.
• 14th - lap 144
• 13th - lap 149

Derrike Cope ended the race going back to 14th position. Overall, the result was great considering the problems the team had with engines in qualifying and with starting the race in 36th position.

After the race, Derrike had these comments: "We had a pretty good car. We kept lugging along. We were in the top 10 for awhile and then we got behind some cars and couldn't get by. That's the way it goes. It wasn't our day. We just needed a little bit more get-up and go."